Call them the voter fraud brain trust. A cadre of influential Washington, D.C., election lawyers has mobilized a sophisticated anti-fraud campaign built around lawsuits, white papers, Congressional testimony, speeches and even best-selling books.

Less well-known than Indiana election lawyer James Bopp Jr., who's made a national name for himself challenging the political money laws, conservative veterans of voting wars such as Hans von Spakovsky and J. Christian Adams nonetheless play a role similar to Bopp's in their behind-the-scenes fight to protect ballot integrity.

Both former Justice Department officials, von Spakovsky and Adams have worked alongside such anti-fraud activists as Thomas Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, and Catherine Engelbrecht, president of the tea party group True the Vote.

They've quietly stoked fears of election fraud among bloggers and grass-roots activists and buttressed a national ballot integrity movement built around pushing new state voter ID laws, cleaning up the voter rolls and mobilizing hundreds of volunteer poll watchers to bird-dog voters on Election Day.

Other leaders in the Beltway anti-fraud brigade include GOP election lawyer Cleta Mitchell, president of the Republican National Lawyers Association, and Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund, who helped launch the anti-fraud movement with his 2004 book "Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy."

Also active is the nonprofit American Civil Rights Union, which bills itself as a conservative counterpoint to the American Civil Liberties Union and runs a "Protect Your Vote" website that warns, "Vote Fraud Steals Your Most Precious Civil Right."

"This is a new area for conservatives to understand and figure out," Judicial Watch's Fitton said. His group has mounted what he calls "the first lawsuits of their kind" to force election officials in Florida, Indiana and Ohio to strip ineligible voters from the rolls. Fitton said his group promotes compliance with Section 8 of the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, which requires election officials to "make a reasonable effort" to remove ineligible voters from the rolls.

Voting rights activists have cast the anti-fraud movement as a politically motivated voter suppression effort funded by the billionaire businessmen Charles and David Koch. The Koch-funded American Legislative Exchange Council dismantled its Public Safety and Elections Task Force after accusations that ALEC had written model voter ID legislation adopted in several states.

"They have substantial experience in high-level conservative politics and the Justice Department, and they have been able to provide a sheen of credibility to the groups that are working with them," said Stephen Spaulding, staff counsel at Common Cause and co-author of a recent report with the public policy group Demos dubbed "Bullies at the Ballot Box: Protecting the Freedom to Vote Against Wrongful Challenges and Intimidation."

Common Cause and such voter protection groups as the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University's School of Law argue that scant evidence exists of in-person voter fraud. They've also gone to court to fight a wave of new state laws that require photo IDs at the polls, curb voter registration and roll back early voting, as well as voter roll "purges" - all steps that they argue will disproportionately disenfranchise minority, elderly and student voters.

The voter ID fight has dragged in the Justice Department, which has intervened to block new ID laws in Texas and South Carolina. The issue is expected to land before the Supreme Court.

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March 13, 2015

Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call

Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., right, hugs Harold Schaitberger, General President of the International Association of Fire Fighters, after the Congressman spoke at the IAFF's Legislative Conference General Session at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill, March 9, 2015. The day featured addresses by members of Congress and Vice President Joe Biden.